Suspect Citizens: What 20 Million Traffic Stops Tell Us About Policing and Race

by Frank R. Baumgartner

It might be easy to conclude that the Durham situation is all too common, that a reform imposed by the community on a reluctant police leadership may prove ineffectual, especially if a city is suffering from significant crime, making the police feel they can give up no tools or discretion.However, Fayetteville presents the opposite story: there, community–police relations were perhaps even at a lower point than in Durham; in any case they were at a breaking point, as noted by the city manager resigning and accusing city councilmen and others of “throwing the police under the bus” and a spokesman for the police officers calling for a federal investigation of those who were engaged in a “conspiracy” to “undermine” the department (see above). Though it took some time, through leadership change, a commitment to building trust, and significant reforms such as written consent as well as de-emphasizing investigatory stops, the situation in Fayetteville was largely turned around.